The Progress of Ion Beam Bioengineering in China

Low-energy ion beam has widely been applied in the field of research on genetic modification since the 1980’s in China. It has been shown, in principle and practice, that ion beam, as a new mutagenic source, has many outstanding advantages: lower damage rate, higher mutation and wider mutational spectrum. Many new varieties of crops and microbes have been bred using these techniques and used in agricultural and industrial production. Meanwhile the method of transferring genes assisted by ion beam has also been developed. Scientists in China have begun to pay a big attention to study on ion beam biology. Up to now there have been seven key laboratories of ion beam bioengineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Provinces to be in succession created. Recent advances in research on ion beam biology have opened new areas of study in the field of life sciences, such as the role of low energy ions in the chemical origin and the interplanetary molecules forming, the health risk of low-energy particle radiation in the environment.